


When looking westward, I beheld a something

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [189]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Self-Esteem Issues, Walkabout, where in the world was clint barton?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 23:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1917672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint knows that he shouldn't be on <i>this</i> team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all. He's a nobody, just an orphan raised as a carnie, just a mercenary who managed to snake a target right under SHIELD's nose, and instead of taking him out, Coulson brought him in and offered him a spot. But snipers are replaceable, and Clint always knew one day someone would get the best of him. </p><p>[Clint, post-Winter Soldier]</p>
            </blockquote>





	When looking westward, I beheld a something

**Author's Note:**

> Title: When looking westward, I beheld a something  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Coleridge  
> Warnings: post-Winter Soldier; self-deprecating narration; AUish, mishmash backstory for both Clint&Natasha  
> Pairings: none  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 475  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: MCU:Avengers (canon or AU), Hawkeye, " _The story of a nobody who saved everybody_." (The Lego Movie Tagline)

Clint knows that he shouldn't be on _this_ team -- the smartest men in the world, Captain America, an alien warrior prince, and Tasha, the most dangerous of them all. He's a nobody, just an orphan raised as a carnie, just a mercenary who managed to snake a target right under SHIELD's nose, and instead of taking him out, Coulson brought him in and offered him a spot. But snipers are replaceable, and Clint always knew one day someone would get the best of him. 

For a few weeks, as he hunted the Black Widow, he assumed it would be her. But instead of taking her out from a distance, he went in to talk to her, and he brought her home. 

And then Loki. The wave of blue, the smoking helicarrier, the destruction in New York – Clint kept waiting for someone to arrest him, to lock him away, but after the dust settled, Hill told him to clear out and keep to the ground, so he did. While Tony dealt with terrorists and Thor did whatever the fuck in London and then Tasha and Captain America tore down SHIELD to show off its’ Hydra innards, Clint kept to back roads and wandered. 

He waits for Tasha’s message ( _Safe :) stay lost_ ) and keeps to his meandering course. He’s just another nobody. 

Her next message is two weeks later and it makes him sit up straight from his sprawl on the ground. It’s in a code they haven’t used since Budapest and his eyes widen as he decodes it: _Remember that time you hunted down a spider? Now you need to hunt down a ghost_. Attached are the pertinent files, encrypted; it takes him all night to decrypt ‘em. After he does, he just shakes his head. 

The Winter Soldier. Once, Captain America’s best friend, from back before he was Captain America. The only of her teachers that Tasha remembers fondly, not that _he_ remembers _her_. Tasha is off being busy somewhere, and Captain America is tracking the Winter Soldier while also burning Hydra to the ground, but Cap’s not much of a hunter when his prey isn’t announcing itself to the world. 

Clint hasn’t done anything since Hill told him to get lost, so of course Tasha sent him the (second?) most dangerous mission of his life. 

He spends two days on the files: facts on the Soldier’s breaking/remaking, training, programming, past missions, and then the mission that broke it all into pieces. The last file is only what Tasha thinks the Soldier might do, where he might go. She’s thinking like an operative who just broke free – but, she admits to him, in cold black and white text, that she was never a person, before. The Soldier was. 

“Well,” Clint says, stretching and packing up his kit. “Time to go ghost hunting.”


End file.
